Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Water is LIFE in Uganda

by Avin Dyck

Social Studies 6

April 28, 2015

The students in the classrooms at our school have to pump water for drinking, washing hands and cleaning their classrooms.

Each jerry can takes an average of 20 minutes to pump.

Water is a valuable resource all over the world. It is essential to have clean water to grow food, not only for us but for the animals who God instructed us to care for.

I live in Uganda where running water is not common in homes. Most families own jerry cans that they have to walk a distance to fill up every single time they need water. It is common for children to wake up at 5am to go and get water and again when they get home from school. Can you imagine having to walk to get water for bathing, cleaning, and watering your crops? They also have to boil this water before they can drink it. Part of the job we do in Uganda is educating the students on boiling their water before they drink it.

A bore hole allows you to pump deeper and cleaner water.

Our hope is to have bore holes that provide cleaner water to every community in the area we work, hopefully within an hour walking distance from their home. If there are not bore holes then people use watering holes and dirty rivers to get water from.

This is a dirty watering hole.

I am so thankful that God provides bore holes in Uganda so people don't only have to use watering holes.

I visited this community last week with a social worker, over 1,000 people only have this dirty watering hole as their nearby water source. A sickness called Typhoid is very high when this water is used for drinking and cooking. They say Typhoid feels like the worse flu you could ever imagine. We are very thankful that a donation for a new bore hole came in last week and this community is getting a bore hole! Praise Jesus for providing clean water!!!

A rain water collector at our secondary school.

Another safe way to provide water to families in Uganda is rain water collectors. It only rains in Uganda about 4-5 months of the year, but is very helpful to collect that water during the rainy season.

This family will collect water into this small rain collector from the roof of their mud house.

I am pumping water for our own house with my sister Mazzy, we have to pump water to use in our own house during the dry season, during the rainy season their is a rain collector on our house.

Each of these normal sized jerry cans that took 20 minutes each to fill up will only flush your toilet 2 times!! That really tells you how much water we use without thinking about it. I can't drink the water out of our taps, we need to boil it first. When I am in Canada I see people using water without thinking about the work it takes some people to just have a clean glass of water. I am thankful for this experience and that I don't take water for granted.

If you are interested in providing clean water in Uganda our organization is

1 comment:

This is great Avin! You very clearly present the problem of how to get clean water - I was reminded to be grateful for the clean water I have, not to take it for granted and to help others with my resources. Way to go! Mrs. Kraushar